Anders Alexandra – Lőrinczy Gábor szerk.: A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Archaeologica 12. (Szeged, 2011)

László BARTOSIEWICZ: Ex Oriente equus... A Brief History of Horses between the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Ages

Ex Oriente eqiuis. Arjan-Chernogor Phase (8

t

h-7

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h c. BC), the Maiemir-Kelermess phase (7

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h-6

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h c. BC), and the Pazyryk-Chertomlyk phase (5

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h-3

r

d e. BC; ALEKSEEV ET AL. 2001). Burial mounds often containing the skeletons of numerous horses are also common in the European Steppe. The most widely known such graves were found in the Dniepr River region. In addition to horse remains, they revealed treasures decorated with animal motifs such as the gold pectoral from Tolstaya Mogila. Of its two main rings, the outer is decorated with mythical and wild creatures attacking horses, while the inner circle shows animal husbandry scenes, including a mare and her suckling foal (Fig 1, 2). Such naturalistic depictions are typical of highly developed goldsmithry that flourished in Greek colonial towns along the Pontic coast. While the figures depicted look "Scythian", it is difficult to tell whether the wild/domestic contrast reflects western or eastern mentality. In a series of scenes around the contemporaneous gilded silver amphora from Chertomiik domestic horses are broken in. The hanging mane on both pieces of artwork suggests that the horses are domestic. The paucity of such stylistically diagnostic import objects in Scythian graves in Central Asia and Siberia further indicate the need for methods of scientific dating, including dendrochronology and 1

4C measurements (ALEKSEEV ET AL. 2001). The Great Hungarian Plain, located at the far western frontier of the Eurasian Steppe fell under Scythian cultural influence from the late 7

t

h c. BC onwards. The 135 cm average withers height was estimated from 78 Iron Age long bones (BÖKÖNYI 1974, 246, Tab. 3). In contrast, fourteen complete horse long bones from largely contemporaneous Celtic settlement of Sajópetri resulted in a mean withers height of only 123 cm (113-134 cm, standard deviation=6.7 cm; BARTOSIEWICZ-GÁL 2010). This difference falls in line with the frequently emphasised larger size of Scythian horses compared to their "western" kin (BÖKÖNYI 1968, 41). The sizes of Scythian horses from Szentes-Vekerzug (BÖKÖNYI 1952) especially contradict Herodotus (v. 9), who wrote that the horses of Syginnae were small and shaggy, too weak to bear a rider, but when yoked to chariots, they were among the swiftest. In addition to the wagon burials, widespread Scythian horseback riding is proven by a broad range of bridles. Sarmatians defeated the Scythians in the northern Pontic Region and reached the Carpathian Basin by the AD 1

s

t c., at the time Romans established the province of Pannónia. Sarmatians spent four centuries east of the Danubian limes of the Roman Empire. References to their horsemanship (e. g. Quadi acquiring Sarmatian cavalry skills; eight-thousand Sarmatian horsemen enlisted by the Roman army after a victory in AD 175) concur with the high representation of horse in food refuse. A simple type of artefacts, bone skates and runners commonly occur in Eastern Europe (CHOYKE 1996; GÁL 2010, 225,' Fig. 16). They were first produced during the Bronze Age, using almost exclusively horse metapodium bones; therefore they may be associated with the material culture of steppe habitats characterized by harsh continental winters and extensive floodplains of large rivers. Horse bone skates thus represent the subtle relationship between environment, horse keeping and material culture. Huns occupied the steppe as the Great Wall of China was built to fend off western Barbarians in the AD 3

r

d c. They crossed the Volga subjugating the Alans, then occupied the Dniepr-Don interfluve (AD 375), and defeated the Visigoths. In AD 395 they conquered Roman provinces in the Balkans. They moved the seat of their empire into the Great Hungarian Plain around AD 425, filling a power vacuum between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, harassing both. This vigorous military activity would have been impossible without cavalry. However, virtually no osteological evidence of Hunnic Period horses has been published in Hungary, chiefly due to the lack of horses in burials. From the viewpoint of historians, however, a fortunate spin-off of the Huns' wrongdoings in the west was that their military actvities were broadly covered in documentary sources, sometimes in the form of political propaganda. According to the realistic description by the Roman veterinarian Flavius Vegetius Renatus quoted by BÖKÖNYI (1974), Hunnic horses "have large heads... with no fat at all on the rump... the leanness of the horses is striking. But... their ugly appearance... is set off by their fine qualities, a sober nature, cleverness and their ability to endure any injury". These general features are quite clearly shown in a 4

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h c. BC gold plate from Siberia (Fig. 1, 3). Avars moved into the Carpathian Basin from the steppe between AD 567 and 804, creating an ethnically heterogeneous empire. They introduced stirrups to Europe that, as well as saddles with high pommels, helped archers to rise and aim with short 129